BEAT THE BURGLAR| HOW TO TIGHTEN UP SECURITY
Ways to ensure your Mac cave doesn’t become an Aladdin’s cave for villains for my imac, i bought the kensington safestand: a metal bracket that bolts to your desk
Even the most solidly constructed garden building is going to be more flimsy than your house; and that means it’s going to be a tempting target for burglars. While it’s impossible to make any outbuilding completely criminal-proof, there’s plenty you can do to deter opportunists and frustrate more serious villains.
The weakest points in any garden building are the windows and doors, and while those usually come with locks, the locks you get don’t tend to be very tough. Barring the windows 1 using steel bars or security mesh is a simple, relatively cheap and effective way to prevent people smashing a window and climbing through (but the bars need to be bolted all the way through and the screw heads drilled out to prevent someone simply unscrewing them).
If the standard door lock isn’t very strong – and if you’re buying a basic garden building, it probably won’t be – you should replace it with a five-lever mortice lock 2 and ideally you’d supplement it with a hasp and staple lock and a good quality, drill-proof and weatherproof padlock 3 .
Burglars always look for the weakest point of entry, and if your door locks are good they’ll turn their attention to the hinges – and as with locks, with cheaper buildings the hinges tend to be cheap too. Fitting hinge bolts 4 or replacing the hinges with security hinges 5 on outward-opening doors can make it much more difficult for burglars to remove the door.
Deterrence is important as well. A security light 6 can scare off opportunists and alert you to unwanted visitors, while a visible alarm
7 can also work as a deterrent – just make sure that if it’s easy to reach it has an anti-tamper mechanism so it can’t simply be disabled or removed. Look for one with a siren loud enough to be heard from inside the house.
If possible, you should remove your Mac and anything valuable whenever you leave the building. That might not be possible or practical though, so you could invest in a locking system such as a Kensington SafeStand 8 , which bolts your Mac to the furniture. And don’t make it obvious that your building’s full of expensive stuff: consider installing opaque window film or putting up some cheap roller blinds to keep your system secret.
Last but not least, don’t undo all your good work by leaving the door unlocked and the alarm off when you pop to the shops. Many burglaries happen because someone saw an opportunity and took it. If someone steals your gear because you left the doors open, your insurance company is unlikely to lend you a sympathetic ear, let alone pay your claim.
everybody sees and which has to deal with the weather. Once I’d painted I tried installing wooden flooring, but it was a disaster: the cold weather made it bend so much it was like trying to fit a bouncy castle. I dropped that idea and spent £50 on carpet tiles and carpet tape instead.
Last but not least, think about how you’ll get to your Mac cave. Will you be traipsing mud in every time it rains? If you have slabs or decking, will they be slippy in winter? I didn’t think about that until the combination of frost and wooden steps gave me a badly bruised backside, after which I put non-slip grilles on the steps.
Make your cave comfy
If you want to furnish your Mac cave without spending a fortune, it’s worth looking at what you’ve already got. I reused my existing chair, installed an old desk for my printer and paperwork and moved a storage bench from the garden. The bench isn’t exactly pretty, so I chucked a blanket over it. The only new furniture I had to buy was a computer desk, and thanks to the classified ads on Gumtree I was able to get an IKEA one in great condition for just £30.
Furniture isn’t the only thing you’ll need to think about. Garden buildings, no matter how well insulated, can get very cold in the winter. A decent heater with a timer, or a WeMo switch that you can control from your iPhone, is a must, as is a fan for the summer when your Mac cave becomes too warm. Blinds are a good idea too, especially if you’re using an iMac: its screen is far too reflective for brightly-lit rooms, especially when the sun’s low in the mornings.
Keeping your Mac safe
The best way to keep your Mac safe is to take it into the house every evening, but I can’t really do that with my 27-inch iMac. That meant I needed to find ways to stop burglars. The list I came up with included steel bars for the windows (£14 for four), hinge bolts for the doors (£4), a stronger lock (£10) and a hasp, staple and strong padlock (£25).
I bought an alarm system with damaged packaging on eBay for £80 (a saving of around 50%) and because my iMac isn’t the most recent model I was able to pick up an end-of-line Kensington SafeStand for around £40 instead of the usual £99. The SafeStand is a heavy metal bracket that bolts to your desk, and the iMac is then secured inside it using a custom lock. To get the Mac out, burglars would have to take the desk apart – something they wouldn’t be able to
do quickly or quietly.
Prepare for the worst
There’s only so much you can do to prevent burglaries: if someone’s really determined to get in, they’ll get in. I’ve read of garden offices where burglars tore off the roofs, and of converted caravans that were simply towed away in the dead of night.
You can’t secure against every eventuality, but you can take steps to ensure that if the Mac goes, it won’t ruin your life or your career. That means backups, and lots of them. I have two external hard disks that back up everything, and I also store all of my music in iTunes Match and my photos on Flickr. I’ve also moved all of my work documents and invoices into my Dropbox folder, so if disaster strikes and I lose my Mac I won’t lose access to my stuff.
As for the Mac itself, it’s password-protected at boot (you can set this by holding ç+R at boot and clicking Utilities > Firmware Password) and at login. And if the villains get past that, I’ve got Find My Mac enabled, so I can send the burglars abusive messages, shop them to the cops and remotely wipe the computer.
Mac caves: pros and cons
I’ve been in my Mac cave for a few months, and it hasn’t been completely hassle-free. Glare’s an issue and it’s hard to get the temperature right, especially in good weather when the wasps hang about, waiting for me to open a window.
The biggest issue, though, is sound pollution. I live on a flight path and near a main road, both of which can be noisy, and when rain isn’t drumming on the roof there’s a constant soundtrack of neighbours’ lawnmowers, power tools, alarms, dogs and children. Mind you, I get my own back with bellowed singing and hamfisted guitar playing at inappropriate hours, so it probably balances out.
Was it worth it? I think it was. I’ll happily trade the odd bit of daytime noise for a space where I can make music when the kids are in bed, and it’s great to have a working area that’s completely separate from the rest of the house: it’s easier to switch off when the working day is done if you’re physically leaving a building and locking up. I think I’m going to enjoy being a cave man.